Should You Sell Symmetry Medical Inc. (SMA)?

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Is Symmetry Medical Inc. (NYSE:SMA) investors track the following data?

In today’s marketplace, there are many gauges shareholders can use to monitor the equity markets. A pair of the most innovative are hedge fund and insider trading movement. At Insider Monkey, our research analyses have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the best fund managers can trounce their index-focused peers by a significant amount (see just how much).

Equally as key, bullish insider trading activity is another way to analyze the marketplace. As the old adage goes: there are plenty of motivations for a corporate insider to drop shares of his or her company, but only one, very simple reason why they would initiate a purchase. Many empirical studies have demonstrated the market-beating potential of this method if you know what to do (learn more here).

Keeping this in mind, let’s analyze the newest info surrounding Symmetry Medical Inc. (NYSE:SMA).

What does the smart money think about Symmetry Medical Inc. (NYSE:SMA)?

At Q2’s end, a total of 14 of the hedge funds we track held long positions in this stock, a change of 0% from the first quarter. With the smart money’s capital changing hands, there exists a select group of notable hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes substantially.

Symmetry Medical Inc. (NYSE:SMA)When using filings from the hedgies we track, Ariel Investments, managed by John W. Rogers, holds the biggest position in Symmetry Medical Inc. (NYSE:SMA). Ariel Investments has a $33.9 million position in the stock, comprising 0.6% of its 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by Joel Greenblatt of Gotham Asset Management, with a $2.1 million position; the fund has 0.1% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Remaining hedgies that are bullish include Chuck Royce’s Royce & Associates, Peter Rathjens Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital and Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies.

As Symmetry Medical Inc. (NYSE:SMA) has witnessed dropping sentiment from the smart money’s best and brightest, it’s easy to see that there lies a certain “tier” of hedgies that elected to cut their positions entirely in Q1. At the top of the heap, Ken Grossman and Glen Schneider’s SG Capital Management dumped the biggest investment of all the hedgies we key on, valued at about $4.9 million in stock. Robert B. Gillam’s fund, McKinley Capital Management, also said goodbye to its stock, about $1.3 million worth. These transactions are intriguing to say the least, as aggregate hedge fund interest stayed the same (this is a bearish signal in our experience).

What have insiders been doing with Symmetry Medical Inc. (NYSE:SMA)?

Bullish insider trading is at its handiest when the company in question has experienced transactions within the past half-year. Over the last half-year time period, Symmetry Medical Inc. (NYSE:SMA) has seen zero unique insiders buying, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

We’ll also take a look at the relationship between both of these indicators in other stocks similar to Symmetry Medical Inc. (NYSE:SMA). These stocks are Cardiovascular Systems Inc (NASDAQ:CSII), Natus Medical Inc (NASDAQ:BABY), GenMark Diagnostics, Inc (NASDAQ:GNMK), Invacare Corporation (NYSE:IVC), and Cynosure, Inc. (NASDAQ:CYNO). This group of stocks are in the medical appliances & equipment industry and their market caps are closest to SMA’s market cap.

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